


In Obscurum

by springbreeze



Category: Senyuu.
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-12
Updated: 2016-07-12
Packaged: 2018-07-23 16:10:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7470294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/springbreeze/pseuds/springbreeze
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>obscurum per obscurius - "to explain an obscurity by something still more obscure".</p>
<p>A story of not being straightforward.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Obscurum

**Author's Note:**

> I haven’t written properly in way too long, and I’m trying to get back into it. Can you believe this is my first explicitly romantic story for Alba and Ros? It's not even super romantic. But I really like their unspoken relationship, in every possible meaning. I think they know, even they never say anything.

_~In Obscurum~_

_That is to say, it was a promise to be a conversation of ‘someday’._

* * *

“I have someone I like.”

Ros replied evenly, without missing a beat. “Are they human?”

“That’s your first reaction!?”

“You’ve never given me reason to think otherwise…”

Alba was unsure as to what had caused him to blurt the words out all of a sudden, but whatever push the feeling had given him was gone, completely extinguished by Ros’s cool indifference. He sat at his desk, fuming silently.

“Well?” At length, Ros spoke again in a slightly kinder tone, like that of a parent trying not to hurt their child’s feelings when presented with an unsightly work of art. “Is that all you had to say about it?”

“…That’s as far as I thought.”

“You’ve never had a relationship with anyone in your entire miserable life, have you?”

An exasperated cry escaped Alba and he buried his head in his arms, shaking with combined indignation and shame. “At least say ‘yet’! And you knew that already!”

“I just wanted to rub salt in the wound!”

“Yeah I know!!”

His yell echoed off the stone walls of the prison, ringing sadly against the metal bars constituting a door. Ros cringed, more out of annoyance than anything else. “Hero, just how low are your crush’s standards? What would they say if they saw you right now?”

Alba made some sort of noncommittal noise.

With a loud sigh, Ros snapped shut the textbook he had been flipping through and stood, stretching briefly. Crossing the length of the room from where he had been sitting on Alba’s bed, the unamused former-hero-currently-magic-tutor tapped the hard spine of the book against Alba’s head, still slumped facedown over the desk.

“Ouch.”

“So? You must have a reason for telling me all of a sudden. If not, stop sulking and get back to work. Or do you want me to triple this month’s homework?”

“Anything but that.” But Alba did not lift his head yet, only turning onto his right cheek to look up at Ros. “And I dunno… I kind of said it without thinking.” An idea, an observation struck Alba then and he sat up, squinting dubiously at his friend. “You’re pretty calm though. Aren’t you… going to ask me about it…?”

“There’s absolutely nothing interesting about your nonexistent love life, hero.” Ros’s reply was dismissively casual. He leaned onto Alba’s desk, crossing one leg over the other, and opened his book again. “Did you want to gossip about it like giggling schoolgirls? ‘Oh, oh, who is it~?’ ‘Aah, don’t make me say it~ How embarrassing~’ …Something like that?”

“…Please don’t ever do that again.” Alba snapped his jaw closed—Ros’s falsetto had been, in a word, indescribable. A wickedly mischievous smile formed on Ros’s face as he glimpsed the spots of pink staining Alba’s cheeks.

“Did you enjoy that, hero? You’re disgusting.”

“ _That was unwarranted!_ ”

“Ahaha, pueh, pueh~”

“Ugh, forget it! I’m going back to my work, happy?”

“Not particularly.”

The fierce scribbling of Alba’s pencil was the only sound breaking the silence for a long while. “But I did think that you’d ask me more,” he mumbled, scrawling out a number before realizing he had forgotten to carry the ten. “You’re… really not interested?”

“It’s not hard to imagine what kind of person could catch your attention.” Without looking up from his book, Ros flipped a page. “…They _are_ a person, yes?”

“ _Yes!_ ”

“Just making sure. In any case, it’s none of my business who you like, hero. …What’s that look for?”

“Nothing.” But Alba continued to stare at his friend, as if searching for something in Ros’s face. Ros narrowed his eyes at the relentless gaze, unamused, and was about to speak before Alba beat him to the punch. “You’re not worried, or anything.”

“Why in the world would I be worried?”

“No reason.” Alba looked away at last, a small smile playing on his face. “Hey, Ros, ask me stuff anyway. Now’s your chance to learn my type, right? So that you can sabotage me when I try to show off.”

“You’re being awfully generous.” Another sigh came from Ros. “Well, it’s also my chance to make sure you haven’t fallen for some unsavory type either, I suppose. Knowing you, that’s just what would happen.”

“Your faith in me is amazing,” Alba said cheerfully. “Come on, hurry up.”

“I’m thinking, be quiet.” In a rare occurrence, Ros appeared unexpectedly hesitant. Was it self-consciousness? Alba wondered. “Are… Are they good-looking?”

“Yeah. Always really cool. Someday I want to see if I can take that coolness down a notch.”

“Tsk. Are they smart?”

“Yeah. Really, really smart. But also really stupid sometimes, if I’m not watching.”

“…Are they kind?”

“…The kindest person I’ve ever met.”

For some reason Ros scowled, looking as if he were on the verge of shouting objections. “Are you sure about that, hero?”

Alba replied evenly, without missing a beat. “I’ve never been more sure of anything else in my life, Ros.”

He caught only a split-second’s glimpse of flooding crimson before Ros’s face sank more deeply behind the book that he was now holding unnecessarily at eye-level, eyebrows furrowed. “Enough guessing games, hero. Won’t you just tell me who it is?”

“Nope.”

A grin, as wide as his face would stretch, at Ros’s startled expression.

“Not right now. Not yet.”

And if his grin was a little smug—he would accept the inevitable beating for it without a single drop of regret, a thousand times over.

Ros closed his eyes, a strong impulse tugging at the corners of his own lips.

“…I see.”

* * *

_The person I like… is wearing the same clothes as you._

_The person I like… has the same eyes as you._

_The person I like… laughs the same way as you._

_The person I like… has the same name as you._

He glanced back down at the work Ros had assigned to him, and noticed a miscalculation in one of his answers. Erasing the error, Alba picked up his pencil again, spun it absentmindedly between his fingers once, and set the tip against his paper.

“Ros?”

“…Yes?”

“When I get out of here…” The words came out hoarse, and he swallowed. “I’ll tell you. Who it is I like.”

“…”

“So when that time comes, will you listen?”

“…Of course. If I’ll do.”

Alba continued to stare very hard down at his paper, not daring to even look up at the tangible sound of Ros’s smile. If he met Ros’s eyes now, everything, everything would certainly come flooding out.

And, he would be utterly undone.

_Of course you’ll do. There’s no point, if it’s not you._

“Yeah. You’re the only one I can tell.”

“Well then, I look forward to it. Alba.”

…Completely unfair.

* * *

_Maybe in a year, or in ten years, someday in the future…_

_There’ll be a time when I, or Ros, might fall in love with someone else._

_But that future isn’t now. And I hope it never comes._

_So right now, please, let me keep falling in love with you, for just a little while longer._


End file.
